Alistair is a boy's name of Irish and Celtic origin meaning “to defend and ἀνδρ-.” In 2024 it was given to 257 boys in the United States.
Alistair at a glance
Gender
Boy name
Origin
Irish & Celtic · English & American
Meaning
“to defend and ἀνδρ-”
Pronunciation
/ˈæl.ɪ.stɚ/
Also spelled
Scottish
About the name Alistair
Alistair belongs to the Irish & Celtic and English & American tradition. Its meaning — “to defend and ἀνδρ-” — is the sense carried by its Irish and Celtic roots, and it is the meaning we verified against published sources for this page. It travels in a few spellings: Scottish.
In the United States, Alistair first appears in Social Security records in 1956. It climbed to its best-ever rank of #885 in 2016, and in 2024 257 babies received the name — 3,822 in total since 1880. Those are the official counts, not estimates.
Meaning and origin for this page were checked against this source. US popularity figures are from the Social Security Administration's public baby-names data. England & Wales figures are from the Office for National Statistics. If you spot an error, write to [email protected] — accuracy is the whole point of this site, and corrections are made fast.
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